Pereira, Younousse bow out in pre-quarterfinals at Gstaad

Doha: Qatar’s Jefferson Santos Pereira and Cherif Younousse bowed out in the pre-quarterfinal, losing 21-16, 21-14 to US third seeds Phil Dalhausser and his partner Nick Lucena at the Gstaad Major, a five-star event on the FIVB Beach World Tour in Switzerland on Saturday.

Pereira and Younousse had displayed stunning form on their way to the last-16, defeating Canadians Chaim Schalk and Ben Saxton, the winners of multiple medals on the FIVB Beach World Tour, in the first eliminations, and Olympic silver medal winners Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai of Italy in the first round.

But they could not repeat their performance against Swiss-born Dalhausser and his partner Lucena of Cuban heritage.

Pereira summed up his team’s overall performance by saying,” I think we had a good result but we can’t be very happy. We should get more such performances regularly.

“ We must need to think to get better positions in the tournaments.

“We tried our best but the USA team played very well against us and gave us no chance, keeping the pressure on us constantly,” added Pereira.

“We’ve now one more event to play before we go to the worlds. Hopefully, we’ll be in better shape during the biggest event on the Tour in Vienna later this month,” said Pereira.